GRAVER: Don’t Ban the Box

The juxtaposition of Yale and New Haven poses troubling contrasts. Often just a few blocks separate immense wealth from destitute poverty, boundless opportunity from institutionalized plight, the American dream from the dark shadows that still plague our nation. Yalies ought to be sincerely moved by this, and almost all of us are.

Nevertheless, un-tempered and ill-channeled empathy can be as dangerous as outright apathy — if not more so. New Haven is a tragic story of good intentions gone awry. And now, after nearly over a half decade of unchecked Democratic rule, the city is broke ($57 million budget deficit), unemployed (10 percent) and frighteningly unsafe (27 homicides to date this year).

Vinay Nayak ’14 and Sarah Eidelson ’12 have put themselves forth to grapple with these tremendous problems. Compassion, though, is not a sufficient qualification for good governance. Simply put, the calamity that is New Haven’s fiscal state necessitates that any elected official.

If our aldermanic candidates are actually serious about making these tough decisions, both must renounce their pledges to support the Ban the Box initiative as well as any measure directed towards supporting convicted felons until New Haven’s larger fiscal health is restored.

Ban the Box would prohibit businesses — both public and private — from asking on application forms whether a potential employee has been convicted of a felony.

A business should be able to ask whatever it wants of applicants. If I want to hire only Cubs fans or Republicans, I am more than within my right to do so. The same applies for someone who only wants law-abiding employees. If this is bad business because the employer might be passing over better overall candidates, let the marketplace kick in.

But, more importantly, this isn’t as trivial as a staff of Cubs fans. It is clear, just by business’ cumulative decisions to include this question, that criminal history is a relevant variable in judging a candidate’s character, reliability and trustworthiness. If they didn’t want to ask this question, there wouldn’t be an issue.

Particularly in today’s job market, applications far outnumber openings. Businesses need criteria with which to narrow down possible employees. We should not require businesses to devote unnecessary time and resources to interview a surplus of candidates they would reject once learning their criminal history. It should also be noted that forcing an employer to discuss a candidate’s potential criminal past puts him in an unnecessarily uncomfortable situation.

Whether or not many Yale students approve of the current procedure, the business community actively does. New Haven is in no position to further burden its relationship with job creators.

Through “allocating greater resources” or “community-centered economic development” (whatever that means), both candidates agree that we need to devote more governmental support to ex-offenders. They argue that assisting criminals betters the entire economic climate. However, this just ignores the policies’ collateral ramifications.

We have no money to spend. What about higher deficits? Spending money we don’t have will just push more jobs out of the city. Higher taxes? Connecticut’s business climate (39th in the nation) is already hostile enough. Should we just go after Connecticut’s 1 percent? Something tells me that they’ll enjoy their homes in New Jersey or Rhode Island soon enough.

New Haven government cannot be all things to all people. Be it irresponsible fiscal policy or cultural prescriptions, both candidates tacitly reject the notion that actions have consequences.

To minimalize crime as the logical product of a lack of opportunity not only absolves criminals of moral rebuke — to everyone’s detriment — but also cheapens the trials of law-abiding citizens. There is no doubt that a devastating strain exists upon those living in the level of poverty that grips much of New Haven. But for how long do we intend to prop up those who turn to crime in the face of these challenges at the expense of those who fight through it?

This is not to say that one shouldn’t feel genuine torment at the widespread suffering in our city. But our political history of paralysis and cowardice in the face of needed prioritization and cuts is the most inhumane of all. This is not a desirable state of affairs. But these candidates are the ones we are forced to deal with. We can no longer afford the fiscal or moral cost of prioritizing the interests of those who have subverted the very institutions that they now ask to support them.

If Yale wants an alderman truly acting on the moral onus that comes with our education, we need one who has the courage to make this stand.

Harry Graver is a sophomore in Davenport College. Contact him at harry.graver@yale.edu.

Comments

The Anti-Yale

*A business should be able to ask whatever it wants of applicants.*

NINA: No Irish Need Apply

transformed to

NFNA; NO Felons Need Apply

PS
The first paragraph of this article is beautifully expressed.

RexMottram08

There was good reason not to hire Irish! They would fight with the other Europeans in the factories. An employer has the right to establish an orderly workplace.

Within a few years, the Irish were more civilized and they flourished.

penny_lane

My boyfriend has domestic violence on his record because he got in a fistfight with his male roommate when he was nineteen. He has since been through AA, served in Afghanistan and earned a bachelor’s degree, but he’s still been turned down from jobs because of that charge.

In the America I love, when a person takes responsibility for himself, cleans up his act and becomes a valued member of society, past mistakes should not determine his future well-being.

Leah

Graver, the ‘Ban the Box’ rule doesn’t prohibit the employers from ever asking. They just can’t ask in the first round as part of a checklist, when the applicant has no chance to offer the kind of explanation that penny_lane’s boyfriend has.

noh

Leah is correct. I am a staffer for Vinay’s campaign, and I know that Ban the Box does not mean that public employers are never able to ask about an applicant’s criminal record, or that they cannot conduct a background check. It means that the city asks the question after the applicant is granted a provisional offer of employment. Then, the employer has the right to rescind the offer upon further review. In most cases, Ban the Box policies mean that employers will not ask the question until after the person with the criminal record has been granted an interview, to give them a chance to explain their criminal record in person, and to be judged based upon their qualifications for the job. Graver is correct, employers do need to know about their potential employee’s past, and background checks are necessary. However, the fact is that one in four Americans has some form of a criminal record, and over 70 percent of the crimes committed in New Haven are committed by the re-entry population. The cheapest, most effective way to curb crime is to provide opportunities for people to succeed. Without provisions like Ban the Box, (which does not cost the city any money), it becomes more difficult to return to society, provide for your loved ones, and work to better your neighborhoods. Graver views persons with criminal convictions as stagnant individuals who never deserve a second chance, and it is views like his that have a detrimental effect of the betterment of our communities.

River_Tam

> NINA: No Irish Need Apply

[Never happened][1]:
>The fact that Irish vividly “remember” NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists.

> . In the entire file of the New York Times from 1851 to 1923, there are two NINA ads for men, one of which is for a teenager. Computer searches of classified help wanted ads in the daily editions of other online newspapers before 1923 such as the Booklyn Eagle, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune show that NINA ads for men were extremely rare–fewer than two per decade. The complete absence of evidence suggests that probably zero such signs were seen at commercial establishments, shops, factories, stores, hotels, railroads, union halls, hiring halls, personnel offices, labor recruiters etc. anywhere in America, at any time. NINA signs and newspaper ads for apartments to let did exist in England and Northern Ireland, but historians have not discovered reports of any in the United States, Canada or Australia. The myth focuses on public NINA signs which deliberately marginalized and humiliated Irish male job applicants. The overwhelming evidence is that such signs never existed.

I strongly disagree with the conclusions you reach, and the goal you espouse.

With that said, I absolutely agree with you that we need to NOT implement ban the box.

African american men face a perception issue when they apply for jobs–they are automatically assumed to be felons. Princeton sociologist Devah Pager showed this in a landmark study–white ex-felons are as likely to be hired than african-americans who have NO felony conviction.

The most prevalent theory is that employers automatically assume that african-americans are ex-cons of some sort.

Ban the box does not take this study into consideration, and does not consider that the issue of hiring is far more nuanced than a simple box leads one to belief.

Personally, I think the fact that a clean record african-american has the same shot at a job as a felony conviction white shows that–box or not–employers are making judgments about the applicant which could be dispelled by a more nuanced approach to the question, “Do you have a felony conviction?”

I think until we have taken the results of Pager’s study under consideration, we should not implement a a policy which may have disparate impact. We should consider Pager’s study, invite sociologists who have specifically studied disparate impact on the african-american community, and then craft a policy which aligns with their thinking.

River_Tam

> In the America I love, when a person takes responsibility for himself, cleans up his act and becomes a valued member of society, past mistakes should not determine his future well-being.

“It is clear, just by business’ cumulative decisions to include this question, that criminal history is a relevant variable in judging a candidate’s character, reliability and trustworthiness. If they didn’t want to ask this question, there wouldn’t be an issue.” WHAT?

I’m sorry, but this is absolutely appalling. Businesses have – and continue to – inappropriately use criteria such as gender, sexual orientation, race, and so on to make hiring, promotion, and other business decisions. Unfortunately, people – even business owners – simply aren’t the cool, rationally self-interested profit maximizers that Graver and other disciples of neoliberalism make them out to be. It appears that Graver’s ideological fervor is causing him to simply ignore the historical record, from incredibly powerful and persisting race-based discrimination all across America to the recent class-action lawsuit against Walmart on behalf of its female employees.

thedeadwileytruth

This is a matter of “safety.” The Ban the Box movement is only facing the reality that there are over “81 million” people living with a criminal conviction on their records in the United States. There are only 307 million people in the country. Do the math people. This means that over 1 in 4 people have some type of conviction on their public records. The employer still has the right to ask the question further in the hiring process. Under the Constitution it is “illegal” to deny all people with convictions from legal employment. The EEOC has made that point perfectly clear. I don’t feel safe with so many people with criminal convictions “unemployed.” Mr. Graver, you must be “out of your mind” to suggest that people who have “paid their debt to society” should have to answer to employers to whom they already paid for their crime. The reason why more and more states, cities and municipalities are adopting ban the box measures is because of the empirical data which shows that employment is the best way to lower crime. Lets get the facts straight.

River_Tam

Felony convictions should always be a matter of public record. Whether or not an employer can ask about them on the first form they sign is just political pussyfooting.

thedeadwileytruth

This is a matter of “safety.” The Ban the Box movement is only facing the reality that there are over “81 million” people living with a criminal conviction on their records in the United States. There are only 307 million people in the country. Do the math people. This means that over 1 in 4 people have some type of conviction on their public records. The employer still has the right to ask the question further in the hiring process. Under the Constitution it is “illegal” to deny all people with convictions from legal employment. The EEOC has made that point perfectly clear. I don’t feel safe with so many people with criminal convictions “unemployed.”

Mr. Graver, you must be “out of your mind” to suggest that people who have “paid their debt to society” should have to answer to employers to whom they already paid for their crime. The reason why more and more states, cities and municipalities are adopting ban the box measures is because of the empirical data which shows that employment is the best way to lower crime. Let’s get the facts straight. When you use the word “criminals” and “convicts” you dilute your entire argument because you show you are “demonizing” these people off the bat. Then you come with this completely “bogus” assertion that there are not enough jobs to go around, so employers should be allowed to pick from what is perceived to be “the best candidate for the job,” just totally ignoring that non-offenders also commit crimes on the job as well.

You make it appear as if unemployed people with criminal convictions should just simply “die.” You cannot live in our society without food and shelter. Also, people will not just “die.” They will do whatever it takes by whatever means they have to, to “survive.” This includes “forcibly” taking what you have for their survival. When you reduce people to “animals” don’t be surprised when the “animal” attacks you. At the rate we are going, we are on the “fast track” to criminalizing 1/3rd of our population in just a few short years. The United States is the only modern country in the world that criminalizes it’s people for profit. Everyone knows that “race” plays a great role in this evil practice. The “Chickens are going to come home to roost” sooner or later. Civil Death is an ancient “savage” practice adopted by American settlers, but was derived from ancient Europe. Civil Death Penalties are still practiced today, albeit in disguised form, and punishes anyone who commits a criminal act “for life.” (See) “Civil Death in New York State, How New York State Utilizes Criminal Conviction Records to Impede the Economic Growth of Formerly Convicted People.” This book shows the history of the practice of “civil death” and how it is applied in today’s society.

grumpyalum

@River Tam – And then you probably get angry at them for being unemployed and seeking benefits. Past mistakes that have been paid for shouldn’t doom you for another 50.

What is your answer to the reality of high felonies, particularly in urban communities, largely from drug convictions that are nowhere near as enforced in white communities? We never let them get a job?

No wonder they go for it again.

SY

“And now, after nearly over a half decade of unchecked Democratic rule, the city is broke ($57 million budget deficit), unemployed (10 percent) and frighteningly unsafe (27 homicides to date this year). ”

Look at New Hampshire. Connecticut should be the richest state in the Republic per capita, and New Haven its Athens, if it had not gone the income tax-big public employee union route, starting in the 70’s and 80’s. CT would have many more of the most successful people and their companies from NY and MA. Instead, CT and New Haven are broke, have unfunded public pensions, constant labor problems and unemployment, and are ARGUING ABOUT A BOX.

One-party union government gets an income tax, then a higher income tax, then a bit higher income tax, then insolvency, and next it ARGUES ABOUT A BOX. After the 50’s or 60’s, Connecticut has elected proper liberals, except Lieberman. Democrats turned on their VP candidate, and then elected an idiot senator who can’t remember what war he fought in. If you’re rich, get yourself to a gated community in New Caanan. Mark Twain’s Connecticut is a beautiful state, but the best it can do now is a BOX and beg for federal funds. It wasn’t always that way. Really, it wasn’t.

It’s hard not to vent when Connecticut had it all in its hand and threw it away, year after year for more than 40 years. BAN THE BOX, but CT and New Haven still will be broke (except the “1%”), and it’s a shame.

P.S. I almost didn’t comment, but I couldn’t figure out where I was wrong.

River_Tam

> @River Tam – And then you probably get angry at them for being unemployed and seeking benefits. Past mistakes that have been paid for shouldn’t doom you for another 50.

It’s not about paying for your mistakes – I don’t care about vengeance or balancing karma. I don’t care if someone did one day in prison or thirty years.

These crimes are a matter of public record. It doesn’t make sense to intentionally make it more difficult for employers to know the truth about the applicants for a job. Employers have to be free to make up their own mind. If you don’t think past mistakes should doom you, then go ahead and hire people without regard to their criminal record. That’s your right. But don’t force others to do the same.

I am for one thing – transparency. You’re against it.

> What is your answer to the reality of high felonies, particularly in urban communities, largely from drug convictions that are nowhere near as enforced in white communities?

I grew up in a neighborhood similar to the ones you see on *The Wire*. Drug dealers that service wealthy areas are smart enough not to sling on the sidewalk. This means that they don’t get caught by police, but it also means that they’re less likely to get into a shoot-out with some rival gang in some retarded turf war. Urban drug use, for this reasons, is a WAY more serious problem than suburban drug use. Suburban drug use doesn’t breed stray bullets.

My solution to the disparity in felony convictions? Well, there are really only three solutions, right? Either convict less “urban” felons, convict more “white” felons, or find a way to make the “urban” felony rate drop. I favor option C.

Dr. Cosby sez: *”Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! And then we all run out and are outraged, ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, ‘If you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother.’ Not ‘You’re going to get your butt kicked.’ No. ‘You’re going to embarrass your family.'”*

> We never let them get a job?

Again, you’re free to give anyone you want a job. If you wanted to, you could walk into a rehab center in New Haven and hire every man and woman there. Just let me know the full story about anyone I choose to hire.

JohnnyE

New idea — employers shouldn’t be allowed to look at transcripts either. Hell, why don’t we forbid resumes while we’re at it? Being evaluated on your past behavior is just too harsh.

grumpyalum

@RiverTam – What’s the public policy solution? If most people have an immediate averse reaction to hiring one-time felons, they can’t even get to the interview process, where they could give an explanation that might still get them hired.

However, if it at first glance, 90% of people, with no further information, wouldn’t hire a felon, how exactly is that ex-felon going to get a job that might give him an income, which might then get them off the streets again and into doing something productive?

What is the public policy angle on that? How do you deal with that problem? I get the reality that we have to keep MORE people from not being felons, but that doesn’t change the reality with the ones that are already are. Let’s focus on them for a second.

The Anti-Yale

**NINA (No Ignoramuses Need Answer)

PK**

WIKIPEDIA

After 1860 many Irish sang songs about signs reading “HELP WANTED – NO IRISH NEED APPLY”; these signs came to be known as “NINA signs.” (This is sometimes written as “IRISH NEED NOT APPLY” and referred to as “INNA signs”). These signs had a deep impact on the Irish sense of discrimination.[15]

The 1862 song, “No Irish Need Apply”, was inspired by NINA signs in London. Later Irish Americans adapted the lyrics to include their own perception.
Historians have hotly debated the issue of anti-Irish job discrimination in the United States. Some insist that the “No Irish need apply” signs were common, but others such as Richard Jensen argue that anti-Irish job discrimination was not a significant factor in the United States, these signs and print advertisements being most commonly posted by the limited number of early 19th-century English immigrants to the United States who shared the prejudices of their homeland.

> However, if it at first glance, 90% of people, with no further information, wouldn’t hire a felon, how exactly is that ex-felon going to get a job that might give him an income, which might then get them off the streets again and into doing something productive?

Well, I can probably come up with a better solution which is “deceive employers into hiring him”, which seems to be your plan.

While unemployment and criminal activity are correlated, they’re not casual. People don’t join a gang because they’re poor – people join a gang because they don’t have proper support structures like a proper family.

> What is the public policy angle on that? How do you deal with that problem? I get the reality that we have to keep MORE people from not being felons, but that doesn’t change the reality with the ones that are already are. Let’s focus on them for a second.

I don’t get it – are you more, less, or equally concerned with helping felons find jobs as you are with non-felons? Unless it’s the first, you’d do well to go for general job-creation policies rather than ones designed to trick employers into hiring felons.

RexMottram08

Grow the economy. Demand for labor is the best way to ensure that ex-felons are employed.

grumpyalum

@River Tam – I’m more concerned with felons, simply because they are far more likely to end up in prison, which then continues this whole cycle. Each time it only gets worse.

And I wouldn’t say my policy is to deceive employers to do so. People have gut reactions against things. When explained, many people change their minds. Ex-Felons should have the opportunity to explain their situation in an individual setting. That at least has a much higher chance of their ex-felon status not being a roadblock.

@Rex – Right. But in this specific instance, that’s a red herring. This particular policy doesn’t grow the economy either.

SY

Rex, in two sentences, you stated the real problem and solution, and my frustration with the political class in CT.

Lawsuits also make it impossible to hire felons. To hire felons, civil immunity for employers from lawsuits and liability is necessary, for example if a prior felon rapes or murders a co-worker. Try getting that past lawyers. Yale has been sued for the Le murder by a non-felon. He had a juvenile record for something, I think. If he had a public criminal record for a violent crime that would mean many millions in punitive damages.

River_Tam

> I’m more concerned with felons, simply because they are far more likely to end up in prison, which then continues this whole cycle. Each time it only gets worse.

Three strikes laws. If a felons are so much more likely to re-offend, we should be locking them up longer instead of letting them out on the streets.

> And I wouldn’t say my policy is to deceive employers to do so. People have gut reactions against things. When explained, many people change their minds. Ex-Felons should have the opportunity to explain their situation in an individual setting.

You do realize that your reasoning (save people from their own incomplete information!) is the same exact reasoning used by pro-life advocates to push anti-abortion laws like informing about fetal development prior to abortion, right?

Except, the differences, of course, are that 1) those laws provide more, rather than less information, and 2) those laws are designed to protect fetuses rather than felons.

The paternalism is overwhelming. People can make their own decisions, and they have a right to use whatever heuristics they so choose in determining these decisions. It costs money and time to interview candidates.

Let’s say that an employer who does not want to hire a felon gets 30 resumes. He only has time to do 5 in-person interviews. He chooses his favorite 5 resumes and calls them in. Two of them turn out to be felons – one’s had multiple drug offenses and the other got a rape plea bargain. Given this information, neither has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this job. Congrats –
your retarded law just cost two non-felons a chance at interviewing for a job.

grumpyalum

@RiverTam – And you do that without addressing the massive disparities in the criminal justice system and in how certain communities are far more frequently targeted for criminal violations and in how they are more likely to get more time or harsher penalties from them?

Your solution to the racism inherent in the criminal justice system (not saying they aren’t commiting crimes, just saying that several communities are far more aggressively policed for them) is to put them in longer? Great! For a conservative, you get to breakdown community even further! How exciting.

In some weird way, I’m not exactly against informing them of fetal development, though if it was also explained to them the way in which is comparable to other mammals and was present in a way not designed to lead people into feeling coerced into not being able to get an abortion, sure.

The paternalism is overwhelming and that’s what we do when dealing with public policy issues. Not to make the comparison, but most rights regarding the protection of ethnic minorities against the supremacy of numbers and established power structures are based on paternalism.

There isn’t something magically more ‘worthy’ about being a felon or a non-felon. If someone with a felony conviction can argue to his potential employer why his mistake at 18 shouldn’t judge him at 39, he should be given the opportunity to do so.

I’m not asking employers to hire them. I’m asking that employers ignore that initial gut instinct, so that we can get more people with felony convictions into stable employment and a life that’s going to actually be productive. Or we can put them, individuals who have probably been outside the common community for a decade or more in many cases, in a position where they are more likely to commit the crime again.

Or we can just punish them the rest of their life for a mistake they made at 18. Or in the reality of California, for committing three innocuous crimes (that should have some punishment) and spending 15 years in prison. That seems like a much better solution.

River_Tam

> @RiverTam – And you do that without addressing the massive disparities in the criminal justice system and in how certain communities are far more frequently targeted for criminal violations and in how they are more likely to get more time or harsher penalties from them?

I believe I addressed that earlier when I explained why urban drug use is far more heavily targeted than suburban drug use. Could you elucidate what you mean by “certain communities”? I’m getting a little distracted by all the abstractions here.

> Your solution to the racism inherent in the criminal justice system (not saying they aren’t commiting crimes, just saying that several communities are far more aggressively policed for them) is to put them in longer.

Yup. I also want to put in the white criminals longer, as well as the Hispanic criminals, the N8ive American criminals, and the Pacific Islander criminals. Not the Jewish criminals or the Asian criminals though (because of the Holocaust and Internment, respectively). If these felons are so likely to re-offend, I’m not clear as to why we’d let them back out on the streets.

> In some weird way, I’m not exactly against informing them of fetal development, though if it was also explained to them the way in which is comparable to other mammals and was present in a way not designed to lead people into feeling coerced into not being able to get an abortion, sure.

Ah yes, because in *that* situation, trying to engineer someone’s choice is a *bad* thing.

> There isn’t something magically more ‘worthy’ about being a felon or a non-felon. If someone with a felony conviction can argue to his potential employer why his mistake at 18 shouldn’t judge him at 39, he should be given the opportunity to do so.

You make a great argument for why employers should interview more people with felony convictions. That doesn’t mean you should force them to do so. Employers should be free to screen at whatever stage they choose.

> I’m asking that employers ignore that initial gut instinct, so that we can get more people with felony convictions into stable employment and a life that’s going to actually be productive.

You’re not asking – you’re forcing.

> Or we can just punish them the rest of their life for a mistake they made at 18.

Who’s punishing them? Employers are free not to ask about felonies at all. There are plenty of companies that don’t ask about felonies on applications – my current job didn’t ask until I got through the interview process, and past jobs haven’t asked at all but done the background check on their own. See – my system has *choice*. Choice is so cool. I love choice and transparency and freedom and all that jazz.

Why do you hate choice and freedom and transparency? (Do you hate America?)

River_Tam

> I’m more concerned with felons, simply because they are far more likely to end up in prison, which then continues this whole cycle. Each time it only gets worse.

So, ceteris paribus, you’d prefer a felon to get hired to a non-felon?

RexMottram08

From Stanford University research:

Employers who regularly screen for the criminal record of applicants have a HIGHER employment acceptance rate of young black men. Employers who do not use actual criminal records and instead use other screening mechanisms (i.e. race) overestimate the criminality of their applicants and reject them at a higher rate. This not only immediately qualifies an applicant without a criminal past; it is able to mitigate some of the effects of having a criminal record by distinguishing between lesser offenses and serious crime.

River_Tam

RexMottram08, that sounds like logic, and you know how those get in the way of feelings. Enough of that.

Reddit

RexMottram08, that sounds like logic, and you know how those get in the way of River_Tam’s strawmen. Enough of that.

LTOStaff

Hmm. This makes a lot of sense. We approve. What an insightful, handsome author.